Daniel Holbach announces Ubuntu Developer Week, which will be heldfrom 29th to 31st of January 2013. Holbach writes that, in theupcoming Ubuntu Developer Week, attendees can expect "sessions fromhands-on introduction, packaging and Ubuntu development to talksabout how to quickly get involved in certain teams and interact withother projects and much much more."

Julian Fernandes of Ubuntu-BR-SC LoCo announces the release of theirfirst Ubuntu gaming server called Romero. For now only one game isavailable on their server, which is Valve's "Killing Floor." Later onmore games will be available to play. Besides the announcement,Fernandes also gives instructions on how to connect to the server.

Stephen Michael Kellat of Ubuntu Ohio LoCo reports details of themeeting, which was held on January 23rd 2013 where they covered someof the online resources the team currently has. Logs from the meetingare available on the following link:https://wiki.ubuntu.com/OhioTeam/IRC20130123

Maia Grotepass informs us about the Ubuntu stickers she ordered forUbuntu-za by showing a lovely photo of them, and encourages everybodyelse from the Ubuntu-za LoCo to contact her to order them for a smallfee.

Jorge Castro shares details about the availability of the Juju GUIfrom the charm store, saying it's now easy to "deploy GUI into anexisting Juju development." Detailed instructions are available on thefollowing link: http://jujucharms.com/charms/precise/juju-gui

Along with announcement Castro also provides us with some screenshotsof Juju-GUI in action.

Ben Howard unveils details about the Ubuntu cloud images, coveringtheir ad-hoc release in the past and automated release in the nearfuture for Ubuntu server 10.04 LTS, 11.10, 12.04 LTS and 12.10. "Thismeans that approximately every three to four weeks, a new, freshenedimage will be released. The release cadence will follow the kernel SRUprocess." Any concerns related to this release change can be reportedeither to Howard's blog post or directly to his mail.

Scott Lavender writes about his ideas of a new team structure andpositions of the Ubuntu Studio Team. For example, including subteamsin the structure, following other flavors' structures closer so theycan use and improve them, etc.

Didier Roche of the Unity team describes the new process to releaseUnity daily in the archive, and talks about the life of a mergerequest, stacks, personal package archive builds, and integrationtests to publish a daily package of Unity. He discusses the advantagesand disadvantages of this change, and explains in detail what will bedone, as well as how will it be done. He also states some guidelinesfor merge proposals, and says how can you contribute to making thisproject successful.

Michael Terry writes about the new Software Updater changesimplemented on releases coming to Ubuntu 13.04, including groupingitems into Backup and Ubuntu base sections and improvements to bothcategories.

Jono Bacon writes that, after a response from over 1,500 developerswilling to help with creating the core apps for the Ubuntu Phone, thecommunity was invited to help contribute design ideas for the apps.Balsamiq, an online mock-up tool, has provided a site where designscan be saved and commented on. Additionally, Jono Bacon notes thatthere will be other opportunities in the future to contribute,including icon design, QA, and testing.

Martin Owens writes about the immense amount of work that theCanonical Community Team does for Ubuntu, but that even with longdays, the team is unable to meet all needs of the Ubuntu community.Instead of having the Canonical Community Team as the perceived"center" of the Ubuntu Community, he proposes that the community seekto "find an identity for Ubuntu which lies outside of Canonical."

Nicholas Skaggs introduces how "introspection" can be used to performsome more complicated automated test cases, and explains what thismeans for testing with Autopilot with a visual example using"autopilot vis" - the Autopilot visualization tool.

The Obama campaign relied heavily on Ubuntu during the 2012 USPresidential race. Harper Reed, CTO for the Obama campaign, spoke withCanonical about the challenges they faced, and how the teamimplemented solutions during last year's campaign.

Jon Brodkin of Ars Technica reports that Canonical is consideringswitching from the traditional release cycle to a rolling release,where a major version is released every two years, with updates rolledout in between. Reasons for the switch include being able to staycurrent with security updates and software fixes, as well as givingdevelopers more time and fewer restrictions to deliver features.

Canonical's CEO Jane Silber told PC Pro that the move to a rollingrelease is at "very, very early stage discussions." She notes that shedoesn't know how likely a decision to switch to the new release cycleis, stating, "it's an idea at this point, and I think the decisionmerits discussion."

Richard Collins, head of Ubuntu mobile products, sat down withEngadget and answered their questions about the upcoming Ubuntu Phone.Topics discussed in the interview include: how Ubuntu Phone comparesto Ubuntu on the desktop, compatibility with Android existing apps,competition, Ubuntu for Android, and what the future holds for Ubuntuin two years' time.

Joey-Elijah Sneddon of OMG!Ubuntu! informs that "search support forChina's largest music download site, Baidu Music, has been been addedto Ubuntu 13.04 and is likely to ship as default in the Chineseversion of Ubuntu."

Matt Hartley of Datamation gives us a thorough comparison of Ubuntu12.10 and OS X which includes: installation of an operating system,operating system first impression and software and pre-installedhardware choices. Hartley concludes: "Which operating system is thebest? My advice is to read everything above carefully and determinewhat's important to you. Speaking for myself, Ubuntu (and other Linuxdistros) will continue to be where my time is spent. They offer me theexperience that best meets my needs. Your own experiences may vary."

Joey-Elijah Sneddon informs us that Ubuntu's design team is lookingfor community members to join in with ideas how to change new Ubuntu'ssoftware updater icon. According to Ubuntu's Matthew Paul ThomasUbuntu's current software updater app design has nothing to do withUbuntu. Community can send their ideas to Ubuntu art mailing list.

Razvi of iloveubuntu informs us about the progress of Ubuntu TVproject. Razvi states: "It seems that the official Ubuntu TV projecthas started a serious work on improving its contained software,publicly announcing a call for public testing for Ubuntu TV."

=== The Top 50 Proprietary Programs that Drive You Crazy -- and TheirOpen Source Alternatives ===

Jimmy of WHdb brings us a detailed list of his "top 50" proprietarytools and their alternatives. His list begins with Windows and Ubuntu,some of the other tools are: Mindjet and FreeMind, OpenOffice andMicrosoft Office, MathWorks Matlab and Scilab.

"Chuck, Bucky, and Philbare talk about people who think Ubuntu is aproduct, some new kernel features that you might not have known about,why scooters in Korea are slow, why people line up for things that arereally mediocre, a hate hotline for Unity, and why marketing peopleshould be ashamed. They discuss Ubuntu more than that of course, butnot enough to make you think that this is yet another show aboutsoftware. Enjoy the show."

The Ubuntu community consists of individuals and teams, working ondifferent aspects of the distribution, giving advice and technicalsupport, and helping to promote Ubuntu to a wider audience. Nocontribution is too small, and anyone can help. It's your chance toget in on all the community fun associated with developing andpromoting Ubuntu. http://www.ubuntu.com/community/participate